Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Quintessential Quintet: Shadow Priest

I got Quintessential Quintet two days ago when my shadow priest dinged level 90. I had a lot of fun leveling her, I have so much more understanding for shadow priest DPS than what I do for any of the mage specs. Where my mage died and died and died, my shadow priest has been shielding, healing, DOT'ing and fearing, and just owned those mobs. I'm sure good mages are strong when questing, but I am not a good mage. :) My priest looks totally adorable when she gets wings after using Devouring Plague. So adorable in fact that I feel like not waiting for three Shadow Orbs before using it. And she has cool shadow ravens surrounding her, and even her little companion has shadowform. Awww...

Gearing her these two days has been suspiciously easy... I had a Relic of Yu'lon waiting for her as she dinged, she did Sha of Anger for boots, Love is in the Air for a neck, and then she got an epic cloak from a dungeon which together with two pieces of JP-gear and some drops from heroics and scenarios made me able to queue for Raid Finder Mogu'shan Vaults today! Where she got a belt. :) It's a bit sad, cause I was gonna woman up and bring my Death Knight as the next character into raid finder, as a tank... I can still do that of course, but it's becoming painfully clear that I'm a bit of a coward when it comes to tanking for strangers. Or non-strangers.

The last two days I've actually seen three 476 epic BOE world drops; the cloak I mentioned earlier, another cloak with agility (saving it for my enhancement shaman) and plate legs. I guess it's a coincidence, but from seeing zero in five months to seeing three in two days makes me wonder if they've increased drop rates.

I actually capped three characters on Valor Points this week! The first two days I played my mage exclusively; in dailies, dungeons and scenarios, to get the buff for the rest of them. I also went and got the last Sigil of Wisdom I needed for Lae, just to find out that her reputation with the Black Prince isn't good enough to progress with the chain anyway. Poor Lae... So I've decided she will be the Valor Point-slave next reset, as she needs to kill more mogu and mantid.

As for leveling I feel done for a while. The only one that is a bit tempting is my enhancement shaman, but after her I'm definitely leaving the rest of them alone. I think.

I have a disc priest, whose off spec I keep changing between Holy and Shadow - I don't really understand those two, so it's nice to read someone who does! I have a mage at lvl 88, and her spell rotations make more sense to me - but I'm keen to give shadow a solid try, so will happily read any tips you have.

I guess with a shadow priest compared to a mage, you get a lot of "free" damage, as far as I see it. If your DOT's are up, you always do damage. And when you cast Mind Flay you channel damage, which is less of a big deal if it gets interrupted than if you get interrupted when casting a long-cast time spell with a mage. Also I like execute-abilites, like Touch of Death, Kill Shot, Execute, Shadow Word: Death. The mage doesn't have that, so if the mob gets low, I still feel like I have to work equally hard to get it down before it gets me down. :)

I'm not a shadow-expert, I just make sure to keep SW:P and VT up at all times, cast Mind Blast and Shadowfiend on cooldown, and use DP when I get three stacks of Shadow Orbs. I also use Mind Spike when it procs, and use Mind Flay as the filler. Haste is best, mastery is worst. Not entirely sure what to do with the level 90 talents though... But it's just an alt, I'll have some fun figuring it out. :)

Grats on 90 number 5. My pally just hit 90... number 6, so I'm one ahead of you.I just found this blog today while looking for mog sets for my monk. So I felt obliged to point out that it is in the small print that every shadow priest must have this transmog set.http://www.wowhead.com/transmog-set=1033

Legolene:Cannot Be Tamed just came out with a guide for what to look for in disc priest logs. It is super informative.http://www.cannotbetamed.com/resources/evaluating-raiders-with-world-of-logs/#discpriestMy priest is an alt with a shadow/disc spec.

Hiya, thanks for your comment. :) Since I wrote this I've been staying away from the leveling, so I'm still only on 5 and you are safely in the lead. :)

Avatar Raiment is indeed very nice-looking! I want to have it in my collection for sure. I still haven't started transmogging the priest to be honest... Luckily I can hide her in shadowform wehn I visit the Halfhill Market, I don't want her to be known as the realm's fashion clown.